Schwab Advisor Services appears to be first out of the gate with what likely will be a flood of advertising campaigns proclaiming the virtues of financial advisers who put clients' interests ahead of their own.
Schwab is running digital and
print ads aimed at highlighting the benefits of independent financial advice for high-net-worth Americans. The ads will feature about a dozen of the 7,000 independent advisers who custody assets with the firm. They also will direct the public to a website, FindYourIndependentAdvisor.com, that will offer investor education and a searchable database of Schwab advisers, said Susan Forman, senior vice president and head of marketing for Schwab Advisor Services.
“This campaign is, in part, an effort to break through the confusion that exists among many investors about the difference between traditional advice models and the independent financial adviser,” Ms. Forman said.
The ads will educate investors on the independent model, using terms that resonate with investors, such as trust and accountability, she said.
The ads will begin to run Friday, about 10 months before a new Labor Department rule kicks in that requires advisers to act in clients' best interests when offering retirement advice. Registered investment advisers already are regulated under such a fiduciary standard, while brokers are required only to provide suitable recommendations to clients.
Schwab's national campaign will include videos, and will appear on social media, paid search channels and online media sites. They include the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Forbes, The Economist, CNNMoney, MarketWatch and Business Insider, the firm said.
It is the “most pronounced” investment Schwab has ever undertaken for independent advisers, according to a Schwab news release.
(More: Fiduciary duty finally hits mainstream and main street)
Schwab's been promoting independent advisers for several years, but this year it will spend about four times as much with this campaign, Ms. Forman said. She declined to say how much the company will spend this year.
The campaign also brands the advisers as being associated with the San Francisco-based custodian, she said.
Other large financial firms and groups that support registered investment advisers are expected to launch their own campaigns touting the benefits of RIAs, leading up to the DOL rule's April 2017 implementation date.
(More: Coverage of the DOL rule from every angle)
Over the past year, TD Ameritrade Institutional has videotaped interviews with more than 169 independent advisers espousing their experiences caring for clients and serving their best interests. These videos have been collected on a website, shared via social media and could become the basis of an ad campaign that makes RIAs spokespeople for their industry, said Tom Nally, president of TD Ameritrade Institutional, in an interview last month.
“We should all be raising the visibility with investors around what an incredible job advisers do for their clients,” he said.
Otherwise, RIAs get lumped in with Wall Street and financial services in general, “which is pretty much at the bottom of the list as far as consumer trust,” he said.
Geoffrey Brown, chief executive of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, said the group's board has discussed pursuing a public campaign in conjunction with a not-yet-identified consumer group to make clear the differences between advisers who have been acting as a fiduciary and those who will do so under the exemptions allowed in the DOL rule.
“An adviser who is allowed to enter into a best-interest exemption with their client to do the same old prohibited transactions, is that really a fiduciary?” he asked. “You had to get your clients' sign off to do what you've always done, while NAPFA members have been truly providing financial advice in their clients' best interests for over 30 years.”
The issue is how to make that message resonate with the public, Mr. Brown said.
(More: John Oliver lambasts U.S. retirement savings system, supports DOL fiduciary rule)
NAPFA's campaign would not roll out until closer to April 2017, Mr. Brown said.
The Investment Adviser Association also is discussing how to best press with the public that they deserve to work with financial professionals working under the fiduciary standard.
“We view all the attention the Labor Department fiduciary rule has gotten as an opportunity to educate investors and policy makers about what a fiduciary really is and what the term really means,” said Herb Perone, the association's vice president for communications.
The group has near and long-term education initiatives planned, but he declined to provide specifics.
